1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a fluid delivery system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a support device used as a part of an ambulatory fluid delivery system for supporting and protecting the pump, fluid container, tubing, drip chamber, etc. of the system during use.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common for patient's having certain medical problems to require periodic premeasured infusions of fluid, such as medicaments or nutrients, into their bodies. Examples of such patients are those who may require nutrients to be delivered directly into their digestive tract periodically over long periods of time, or cancer patients who require exacting amounts of medication to be delivered intravenously at precise intervals.
In the past, such patients required hospitalization for the time necessary to infuse the nutrients or medicaments, in order to allow medical personnel to perform the infusions at the proper time and in the proper amounts. Such a procedure was extremely time consuming to the patient and also the hospital personnel, and included the potential of human error in calculation of infusion dosages and injection time intervals.
An improvement on the above procedure has been to employ a programmable pump to insure that the patient receives the proper infusion dosage at the proper time period, thus relieving medical personnel from constant monitoring of the patient, and from worrying about infusion amounts and time tables. Although the programmable pump greatly relieves medical personnel of time consuming care to the patient, the patient nevertheless remains bound to the hospital bed during the prolonged infusion periods.
A further improvement has been to develop an infusion system which can not only automatically infuse preset volumes of fluid into the patient on a predetermined time table, but also allow the patient to be ambulatory. U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,486 to Stemple et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,397,639 to Eschweiler et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,595 to Cromie, are exemplary of portable infusion systems of this type. Each discloses a portable infusion device which is automatically operable at selected time intervals to inject accurate amounts of fluid medication into a patient's body, and is also sufficiently compact and portable to allow the patient to be ambulatory during the infusion procedure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,595 to Srebnik et al. is also exemplary of fluid delivery systems of this type. Srebnik discloses a delivery system which includes an integrally molded platform to which elements of the delivery system, i.e., the pump, the fluid container, etc. can be connected. The platform allows the entire fluid delivery system to be transportable as a unit and makes it possible for the patient to move about without the inconvenience of transporting a more cumbersome apparatus such as a prior art type infusion system which was commonly affixed to a pole mounted on wheels.
Although there have been improvements in portable fluid delivery systems in the past, there nevertheless remain several inadequacies. First, the prior art fluid infusion systems generally include a programmable pump, and a fluid delivery set comprising a fluid container, tubing, pinch clamp, drip chamber, etc., all connected as an integral unit. The container of the fluid delivery sets may be a flexible bag, a rigid glass or plastic bottle or a burette. Sometimes these standard fluid delivery sets (intended for non-ambulatory use) include rather long tubular extensions to allow the fluid container to be placed on an infusion pole while the distal end of the tube can be attached to a bed ridden or non-ambulatory patient. These sets are generally ill suited for placement in a portable device such as that described by Srebnik et al., because the portable system requires significantly shorter tubing extension to properly operate. The excess tubing becomes cumbersome and inhibitive of proper operation of the system and often becomes occluded or pinched off during ambulatory use. Often, such prior art ambulatory systems have required a unique "non-standard" tubing design in order to allow the fluid delivery set to be properly attached to the pump. Since the "non-standard" ambulatory sets (such as shown by Stemple et al.) are generally unsuitable for use on standard non-ambulatory systems, it has been necessary for hospitals and other medical facilities to stock "non-standard" fluid delivery sets for use in ambulatory-type systems, and standard sets for all other uses.